The Theory of the 'Male Gaze'.

'Film has been called an instrument of the male gaze, producing representation of women, the good life, and sexual fantasy from a male point of view.' - Jonathan Schroeder (1998)

Recently in class, we looked at the Male Gaze theory written by Laura Mulvy. She wrote a very influential essay, ‘Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema’ in 1975 using the theories of Freud. Mulvy suggested that the way women are viewed in cinema is ‘unequal’. The camera necessarily presents women as ‘sexualised’, for the pleasure of men.

'The presence of women is an indispensable element of spectacles in normal narrative film, yet her visual presence tends to work against the development of a storyline, to freeze the flow of action in moment of erotic conteomplation.' 

What have I learned?

When looking at the Male Gaze, I've learned that as a society, we're more fixated on the female character as they're usually stereotyped as being vulnerable characters. The male audience are stereotyped as being an audience that only go to the cinema to watch action/horror films featuring young, vulnerable female characters who tend to show some nudity.